Secrets of the Job Hunt

Friday, January 14, 2011

The economic stimulus has created hundreds of thousands of jobs throughout America, including billions of Austin TX jobs.

A recent report from Onvia Inc. found that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act created about 800,000 private sector jobs during the last two years. The stimulus is expected to continue creating jobs during 2011, as only 30 percent of the funding has been used so far.

Texas is expected to receive a total of about $16.4 billion during the life of the stimulus. To date, the state has received about $6.7 billion of that funding, which has been used to create roughly 46,134 jobs.

The positive effects of the additional funding can already be seen throughout the local economy. During November, the Austin area's unemployment rate jumped from 6.9 percent to 7.1 percent, but that was still lower than the national average at the time of 9.8 percent.

The Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos area employed a total of 778,500 workers during November, which is up from 774,600 workers during October and a 2.2 percent increase from last year, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Austin, Texas, and the rest of the nation should continue to benefit from the ARRA this year. Onvia predicts that government spending at state and local levels will drop slightly from 2010, but that spending will continue to create several new jobs. Check out this list of government job description.

"The $5.5 trillion government marketplace will continue to be a source of revenue and growth for many thousands of businesses in 2011 and beyond," Hank Riner, president and CEO of Onvia, said in a statement.